Until the next quilt

Bella Sophia

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Come on, you can do it

June brings the little ones out in our yard. We get the pleasure of watching Mom and Dad teaching them how to get that worm from the ground or how to get out of the tree and on its way…..
Here you go…..June’s block of the month. I’m honouring the little bluebird this time. I love sparrows but the bluebirds really are beautiful. Choose your favourite……..remember it’s up to you what you do on your block.
In the centre of each pattern is a + . Fold your square of fabric into quarters and find the centre and then you can trace or apply your pattern and it should be centred on your block. For the embroidery: Trace the pattern onto your block the same way as last month. Place that same piece of freezer paper behind and using your favourite pen trace around all the areas you want to have on your block. Go ahead, enjoy. It’s your quilt. For the applique: Trace your pattern pieces onto the fabrics of your choice. I made my choices without a lot of trouble this month. No angst for me as I knew what colour the birds were going to be. Blue. I have no idea why my birds are always blue when a little sparrow is one of my favourites. Don’t forget……do the embroidery first with the exception of the beaks and the feet. You’ll see why. Keep reading. For the smaller pieces I just did a straight stitch all around the pieces. I felt the blanket stitch or for that matter the satin stitch would have been overwhelming for these tiny pieces. TIP: If you start stitching where the scissors are pointed at the wing and continue all around the wing, you can then do the bird and it will all be done in one fell swoop. You can do it the same way for the larger bird. Notice I haven’t embroidered the beak or the feet. I find if you do them before the stitching, on occasion they get lost and you have to do them over. I don’t even mark them until the stitching is completed. The embroidery block took me one evening. It wasn’t as long as I thought. The other two I finished up the next day. I’m enjoying the speed of these.
Applique Applique and embroidered Embroidered